John C. DeFries is Professor of Psychology, Faculty Fellow and past Director
(1981-2001) of the Institute for Behavioral Genetics, University of Colorado at
Boulder. After receiving a Ph.D. in Agriculture (with specialty training in
quantitative genetics) from the University of Illinois in 1961, he served on the
faculty of that institution for six years. In 1962, he began research on mouse
behavioral genetics and, during the following year, was a Research Fellow in the
Department of Genetics, University of California, Berkeley. In 1967, he joined the
newly established Institute for Behavioral Genetics. Professors DeFries and Steven
G. Vandenberg founded the journal, Behavior Genetics, in 1970, and Professors
DeFries and Robert Plomin founded the Colorado Adoption Project in 1975.
For over three decades, Professor DeFries has conducted research on the genetics of
reading disabilities, and he served as Director of the Colorado Learning
Disabilities Research Center from 1990-2005. He has co-authored eight books,
including five editions of the standard textbook in the field of behavioral
genetics, over 300 journal articles, and three edited books. He served as president
of the Behavior Genetics Association from 1982-83, and received the Association's
Theodosius Dobzhansky Award for Outstanding Research in 1992. In 1994, he became a
Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (Section J,
Psychology).
